The Heart Matters

My poor son, he has had quite a terrible New Year. Hard to believe that 2009 has only begun. My son is distraught. He says that so far “this is the worst year of his life.” He wants to just end it all now. These are the things that went wrong for Henry in 2009:

Peed on toilet seat and got caught.
Kept annoying Noah.
Shoved head under a pillow.
Tripped and fell going down the stairs.
Burned finger on a party popper.
Noah kept shooting confetti at him (even though Henry asked Noah to do this).
Confetti got all over him – even though he loved it.
Mom told him to get the confetti off of his feet so he wouldn’t track through the house.
Didn’t listen – tracked the confetti through the house.
Had to watch “stupid retarded” Twilight Zone.
Noah rolled on him during the night
Dad farted.
Noah shot him with the Nerf guns that they asked and got for Christmas.
Dad farted once again.

Henry may believe that this year is the worst year of his life, but I recall a New Year’s Day when he was only three. That New Year’s Day will never be forgotten - one that could have indeed been the worst New Year’s Day ever.

Steve and I were watching I, Claudius while the boys were playing with their Christmas toys. We were caught up in the drama and the debauchery of the Caesars – all the while rooting for Claudius. The sun was setting and it was time for dinner.

Dinner is not my favorite part of the day. It used to be. There was a time that I would tinker around the kitchen for hours – attempting to make some delicious delicacy that my family would enjoy. That time had long passed and now I rushed in and made some bland meal that my children would eat – tonight it was “num- nums.”

Steve took the dinner rolls, sliced them in half and put various fillings in the rolls. A spread of cheese, pepperoni, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches lay before this scruffy band of urchins. The kids blankly looked at this creation of starchy goodness.

“Num-nums – they make you dance.” I began dancing about the dining room and munching on one of these amazing creations. The boys quickly grabbed a “num-num” and chomped them. They began to sing along. My four little boys hopped around, wove in and out – bobbed to and fro – all sugared up. The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies could not have been more entertaining. It was quite a sight.

Soon dinner was over. The kids and I returned to the jigsaw puzzle that we were assembling in the living room. The halogen light was shining on our workspace. Puzzle building was serious business in the Beech Household.

At some point, Henry left. Twenty minutes later, Henry comes running from the kitchen and tells me that he went down the laundry chute. Now, he was only three and I did not believe that he actually went down the chute. I would have brushed the entire story off to the pure fantasy of a bored child except that he was so emphatic.

Realizing that a two and a half story fall down the chute would leave some sort of physical evidence, I pulled Henry’s shirt up. He had red scraps on his back. His story seemed a bit more substantial at this point.

Alarmed, I rushed down to the basement. The wooden base of the laundry chute was cracked. I realized that my son had indeed made the perilous leap down through the chute.

At that moment I was not sure how to react.

Should I be angry? After all, he did a foolish and dangerous thing. Not to mention my laundry chute was broken.

Should I be happy? My son could have been seriously injured. He could have become stuck within the wooden shaft that goes from my bathroom to the basement. I imagined what it would have been like calling 911. I shuddered.

Should I laugh out loud? It was an unusual story. No one was injured. Henry even gave a funny reason why he did it. He wanted to be like Santa Claus. Go figure.

In the end, I decided that this should not be mentioned again at least not until the boys were older and more mature. I didn’t want them to attempt such a stunt again.

One way or another, it seems like Henry frequently makes a blazing entrance into the New Year, whether it is through creating a vortex of woe and mishap or whether it is by successfully shooting down through the inner walls of an old wooden laundry shaft.

Why did I write this down? I did it for several reasons. One, writing Henry’s list of woes – got him cracking up. It lightened the mood of a day that was headed for a tumult. I wanted to avoid that and needed some sort of diversion. Henry responds to levity. Two, it was finally time to tell the story – the forbidden story of the laundry chute. I know I have told it to some. Now it was time to write it down before I forgot. I hope I got the details right.

Happy New Year – Evan, Seth, Noah, and yes, Henry too. I hope that you may always season your mishaps with the salt of grace and the zest of humor.